"Pitino has performed so poorly that Celtic will not see any hope of revival under his leadership, but will slide into the bottomless abyss. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info "At the end of the third quarter, the Celtics, who were playing at home at 66-80, trailed the Spurs by as many as 14 points, and compared with Popovich, Pitino's on-the-spot command was simply powerless to complain, and the Celtics were disorganized on the offensive end, without the slightest tactics at all, completely relying on the individual singles of Anthony Walker and Paul Pearce. On the defensive end, not only can Tim Duncan not be prevented, but there is also a lack of countermeasures to the Spurs' one-big and four-small tactics with Duncan as the core.

"In the past few years of Pitino's coaching team, he has blindly selected outside players, and the team's interior lacks enough depth, which has proved that a group of outside players cannot succeed, and even Jordan has star interior players like Grant and Rodman around him." When the Celtics were trailing the Spurs by a large margin and did not see the slightest hope of moving back to the score, the Celtics legends on the commentary bench, Bob Cousey and Tom Heinsohn, also began to criticize Pitino on live TV, and incidentally also criticized Anthony Walker, who did not perform well in this game.

In this game, Anthony Walker played very struggling, playing small forward in the first quarter and the first half of the second quarter, and in the face of Meng Xu's stubborn play, he couldn't rush forward or shoot accurately. After being pressed to the bench by Pitino for a few minutes of reflection, he returned to the power forward position, but after being blocked twice by Tim Duncan in a row, he also stopped playing inside and kept floating outside.

Tim Duncan and Anthony Walker were a pair of enemies in college, the game between the two is often a splash of sparks, Anthony Walker's mouth is relatively broken, and he once greeted Duncan's mother in the game, so every time Duncan meets Anthony Walker, he is very energetic, after Anthony Walker played power forward, Duncan took the initiative to switch positions with Samaki Walker, directly against Anthony Walker, and after a few rounds, Anthony Walker did not score the basket.

And Meng Xu's game is as reasonable as ever, even a little conservative, while defending Anthony Walker and Paul Pierce with all his might, in order to overwhelm Anthony Walker in various statistics, Meng Xu also keeps passing the ball to his teammates, especially Tim Duncan, who has a high shooting efficiency. was very desperate to grab every rebound, and when Anthony Walker was floating on the outside and did not go in, at the end of the third quarter, Meng Xu surpassed Anthony Walker in the three statistics of assists, rebounds and steals. In terms of scoring, in the third quarter, Meng Xu made 3 of 6 shots, 0 of 1 free throws, including 2 of 5 3-pointers, and scored 8 points. Although Anthony shot 6-of-15 from the field, he still scored 18 points on five free throws.

"Meng, how is your physical strength?" With a large lead, Popovich intends to replace the main lineup in the fourth quarter and experiment with some new tactics again.

"I still have a lot of energy." Although his mouth was panting and sweat was dripping from his head to the ground, Meng Xu still hoped to continue to play.

Both the players of Pitino and Celtic are very eager to win this game, and after learning that the cardinal and a group of celebrities watched the game live, the Celtic players also held their breath and wanted to prove themselves in front of the cardinal. And Pitino is also in desperate need of a win to prove himself, this year is his third season in charge of Celtic, but Pitino has not been able to achieve a breakthrough in results, and the past few years have even been called the darkest moment in Celtic history.

Although he was personally appointed by the cardinal, although he is now in charge of the Celtics, he has been questioned by Celtic fans because of his poor grades, and even some extreme fans have shouted for him to leave class. As an NCAA coach, Pitino is unwilling to go back like this, and this game has become his own lifesaver, as long as he can defeat the defending champion, he will get a respite and regain the trust of fans.

So in the fourth quarter of this game, even though he was already behind by a large score, Pitino still kept the main lineup on the court.

After the start of the fourth quarter, the Spurs sent an all-small bench lineup, and after playing for 3 minutes, the effect was not very good, and after Duncan went off the court, Anthony Walker also played well in the face of the Spurs' backup power forward, shooting 3 of 5 in just 3 minutes and scoring 6 points. Under the leadership of Anthony Walker and Paul Pearce, the Celtics also played a small 12-5 surge, bringing the score to 78-85.

Seeing that the margin was back within 10 points, Popovich immediately called a timeout and made adjustments to the lineup on the court, replacing Jeromy Corsi with Meng Xu and Antonio Daniels with Mario Eli, Tim Duncan was still sitting on the bench, waiting for the final moments of the game.

After the game restarted, Popovich pushed Meng Xu to the tactical core and sent Mario Eli to escort him.

"It's finally time for me to perform." Meng Xu slapped the basketball between the middle circle and the 3-point line, trying to calm his mood.

In the first 3 quarters of the game, due to David Robinson's suspension, Meng Xu also grabbed the second most 8 rebounds on the team, while delivering 6 assists, in addition to 3 steals.

Just when Meng Xu held the ball two steps away from the 3-point line, Paul Pierce decisively came up, and after making a cover with Mario Elie, the laterally moving Meng Xu shook off Paul Pierce's moment, and the unguarded Meng Xu shot directly at half a step outside the 3-point line. After the big heart skill takes effect, not only the increase in attribute points, but also Meng Xu's shots will be more decisive, and the frequency of his shots will be slightly different from the first 3 quarters.

After hitting the 3-pointer, Meng Xu retreated to the backcourt without expression, but he was thinking in his heart that he needed to score a few 3-pointers to surpass Anthony Pierce in scoring.

Popovich and Pitino on the sidelines are completely in two moods at the moment, Meng Xu's selfless performance in the first three quarters was wiped out in the fourth quarter of the game, his desire to shoot was very strong, and he only had baskets in his eyes, which even made Popovich a little suspicious that this Meng Xu on the court now was the same person as the previous three quarters.